Cotton Song: A Novel [Hardcover]

Tom Bailey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2006

In World War II–era Mississippi, the aftermath of a tragedy takes on all the intensity and heat of the Delta summer when the town of Ruleton copes with violence, racism, and a vengeful spree that threatens the life of a young girl and the soul of the small town.

In Hushpuckashaw County in the 1940s, many things are desperately unfair. Letitia Johnson, a young black mother and the nanny for one of the town’s most distinguished couples, knows this only too well when the couple’s baby is found drowned in its bath. Accused by the grieving family and the enraged townspeople, Letitia quickly sends her twelve-year-old daughter, Sally, out to hide in the brush before she is taken into custody. The angry mob would get revenge when they drag Letitia from her jail cell and hang her that very night. But they wouldn’t get Sally.

Baby Allen, a courageous social worker, is assigned to Sally’s case, and gradually coaxes the young girl out of hiding, wins her trust, and secures her protection. But once Sally is safe, Baby is left with the greater mission of uncovering the truth about who is responsible for the infant’s death—a shocking revelation that will change the ways and attitudes of a town that has been long in need of changing.

Beautiful and gripping, Cotton Song is the story of a woman’s fight to save the child left behind after the horrific lynching that took her mother’s life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his haunting second novel (after The Grace That Keeps This World), Bailey presents a vicious history of race relations in his home state. Set in fictionalized Hushpuckashaw County, Miss., in 1944, the novel opens just after the lynching death of Letitia Johnson, a black nanny accused of drowning her young charge. Letitia's 12-year-old daughter, Sally Johnson, becomes a ward of the state, and her case file lands on social worker Baby Allen's desk. Baby takes in Sally, and while hiding the girl from the Klan, she finds an unlikely ally in Jake Lemaster, the one-time college football hero who is now second-in-command to his father, Boss Chief, at Parchman Farm, the state's infamous penitentiary where Sally's father is serving time for stabbing a man during a gambling dispute. Jake's progressive politics and clashes with his father over prison reform, compounded by Jake's and Baby's quest to discover who is really responsible for the drowning, come to a violent head during one brutally hot July week. With its heels set firmly in the Southern gothic tradition (scenes involving torture, necrophilia and grisly deaths), the novel depicts a sun-scorched landscape where prospects for justice are as wilted as the cotton plants that stud the dusty ground. (Oct.)
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Review

“Tom Bailey’s riveting and thought-provoking second novel, Cotton Song, zeroes in on a small town in Mississippi during the summer of 1944. Bailey’s novel succeeds on several levels: as a Faulkner-esque tale of empathetic but alienated characters, as an indictment of human brutality and as a litany of the South’s struggle to come to terms with the racial strife of its not-too-distant past.” – Booklist

“In his haunting second novel, Bailey presents a vicious history of race relations in his home state. With its heels firmly in the Southern gothic tradition, the novel depicts a sun-scorched landscape where prospects for justice are as wilted as the cotton plants that stud the dusty ground.” – Publishers Weekly

“Cotton Song is lifted from the pedestrian by style, by bringing a different perspective to what in less skilled hands would be merely repetitive and shallow. Bailey, like the Mississippians he revered as a child, unwinds a story wrapped in the dialect and mannerisms of the region and drives it to a dramatic close.”
– The Biloxi Sun Herald


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books; First Edition. states edition (October 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140008332X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400083329
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,341,329 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Breathtaking story based in the South around WWII, March 7, 2008

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cotton Song: A Novel (Paperback)

Tom Bailey's novel Cotton Song is set in Hushpuckashaw County, Mississippi. It's a raw and visceral view of the relationships between blacks and whites in the south during World War II.

You are invited into the story just after Letitia Johnson, a black nanny, is lynched, tarred and burned for drowning Dorothy, the infant daughter of her employer, Sissy. The accused had raised Sissy from birth.

Letitia's 12-year-old daughter, Sally becomes a ward of the state and her case worker, Baby Allen is pregnant and estranged from her near-do-well, adulterous husband. Baby learns that Sally's life is in danger as the locals (the Klan) are determined to eek out further vengeance for baby Dorothy's death.

Baby is initially unable to find a foster home for Sally and shelters her in her own home. The Klan visits Baby's home one night, and after she shoots at her attackers, she realizes she must find a safe place for Sally. Jake Lemaster, the former one-armed college football hero (who is now second in command to his father, Boss Chief, head of Parchman Farm's-the local penitentiary) becomes involved with Baby and Sally.

Jake and Baby don't believe Letitia drowned Dorothy. Sally's father is serving time at Parchman and is a powder keg waiting to explode. Sissy and husband Clyde have something to hide, and the guards at Parchman are waiting for their chance to `pay back' Jake for interfering in their domain. On a hot Mississippi night in July, the lives of all that have been touched by Letitia's death, meet and violence prevails.

Bailey writes with such clarity and passion that one can actually smell the wet heat of the cotton fields, are assaulted with the acrid odor of blood and repelled by the torture and brutality of man, with nary a drop of justice in sight.

I loved this novel. It is breathtaking, even in its brutality. At times I had to remind myself to breathe, and when I had finished, I didn't want to believe that people could behave the way the characters in Cotton Song had behaved. Sadly, I knew that these things could have happened and I wanted to wash the depravity of humans from my skin. I couldn't.

Armchair Interviews says: A stunning novel. Warning: There is extreme brutality in this book.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth the read, February 4, 2007

By 

JJ "avid reader" (Meridianville, Alabama United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cotton Song: A Novel (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed this book. The author knows his South even though it is not always pretty. The characters and the story stayed with me a long time after I finished reading, especially the ending. Read and enjoy.